The Lightning Thief Reading the Books
by I-Will-Eat-You-You-Look-Tasty
Summary: Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, Nico, Grover and Juniper are sent back in time to see the gods - by Chaos. They have to read the books. Percabeth, Thalico, Grover/Juniper maybe a bit of Athena/Poseidon.
1. Falling Without Wings

**Hey, I felt like I'd try one of the reading the books things. Please review and tell me whether or not to continue.**

**Disclaimer – I don't own the PJO series.**

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Percy POV

I was sitting on the beach with Annabeth. I had my arm around her shoulders and her head was resting in the crook of my neck. We were looking out into the sunset. It was beautiful. Annabeth was beautiful.

"I love you," I whispered into her hair. I could feel her smile.

"I love you too," she whispered back. I was happy. I wished I could stay in this moment forever. But that was not to be.

Suddenly I was wrenched away from Annabeth and felt myself falling, heard Annabeth screaming, "Annabeth!" I shouted. Then I hit the ground.

/\\\\\\\

Thalia POV

I ran through the tree's, chasing Nico. I was going to kill him! Boys and their stupid pranks! I felt something pull at my gut just as I ran into the clearing were Nico was pausing for breath. I saw him disappear just before I myself disappeared. I felt myself fall through the air and screamed. I also heard Annabeth scream. I heard Percy scream Annabeth's name. I heard Nico scream mine. Then I hit the ground.

/\\\\\\\

Narrator POV

The gods jumped as they saw, or rather heard, 4 demi-gods fall from the highest part of the roof of the palace of Olympus, they didn't recognize any of them. They heard The boy on the right scream, "Annabeth!", the girls were screaming. The boy on the left yelled, "Thalia!"

Athena quickly created a giant trampoline, but was unfortunately to late to save the guy on the right. He smashed into the ground and the gods winced, thinking he was dead. The all jumped when he groaned.

"Percy!" The girl named Annabeth screamed and ran over to him.

"Hey, Wise Girl." Percy said, getting up and giving her a hug.

On the other side of the hall of the gods Thalia was trying to find the other boy, murder in her eyes. Then she realized where she was and bowed.

"Nico, I'll kill you later. Right now we have some gods to take care of." She called. Nico came out from hiding and stood next to Thalia. Percy and Annabeth broke their embrace and looked at the gods.

"What do you want, Zeus?" Percy asked.

"Who are you?" Poseidon asked.

"Eh, dad, don't you remem – wait is this some kind of joke?" Percy said.

"Dad? Wait – you mean... POSEIDON, YOU BROKE THE OATH!" Zeus yelled.

"I have no idea what you are talking about, Ze-" Poseidon was cut off by a flash and a bang. A deep voice boomed through the hall.

"I, Chaos, have brought these demi-gods of the future to you, gods, to read the story of one of the congregated children. Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon. Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena. Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus. And Nico Di Angelo, son of Hades. There will be no maiming, killing, or any form of harm allowed to befall these children. Children – do NOT harm the gods. I will leave now."

Ares scoffed, "As if you could harm the gods." The demi-gods glanced at each other. Percy shrugged.

"Whatever you say," he said. That got him some looks.

"Well, let's start." Apollo suggested after a moment of silence. Even though they wouldn't admit it, the gods were unnerved by the demi-gods ease around them. Zeus was silently fuming at Hades and Poseidon but didn't say anything because his own daughter was there. Suddenly, there was another bang and Grover and Juniper came down. After explaining what had happened to them, the demi-gods each created a couch/chair each. They had discovered that they could do that after Annabeth almost fell of another cliff and Percy had caught her in a chair of water. Annabeth, who couldn't do it, say with Percy on his immaculate chair of water. Thalia's chair consisted of nothing but lightning whilst Nico's had been created from earth. Grover and Juniper resided in a large armchair, big enough for two, made out of leaves and vines.

"We need the books, now." Artemis and Thalia said at the exact same time.

"You know, Lady Artemis, that that happens a lot in the future." Thalia told the surprised Huntress.

"What do you mean?" Artemis asked.

"How about we tell you our... rankings? You don't need to tell us yours, we know them." Percy interrupted, easily calm.

"Okay, I am Thalia Grace, Leader of the Hunters of Artemis and Artemis' Lieutenant as well." Thalia stated.

"I am Nico Di Angelo, un-officially Lord of the Dead and one of the Heroes of Olympus plus, I'm Hestia's best friend." Nico informed them. He got some funny looks from some of the gods, including his father.

"I'm Annabeth Chase, Architect of Olympus, one of the Heroes of Olympus and I'm in a relationship with Percy Jackson." Annabeth told everyone, getting a laugh or to from the demi-gods at the last bit.

"I am Percy Jackson, Hero of Olympus, Killer of Titans, Irratator of the gods, Currently in a relationship with Annabeth Chase, Bearer of the Achilles Curse and Guardian of the Hunters of Artemis." Percy announced to the surprised gods.

"Well, children, we wish to know your story however there are no books to read them from." Athena said. At that moment, a package fell from the sky, directly above Percy's head.

"Ouch!" he exclaimed as it landed on his head.

"Oh, shut up! You can't feel it!" Annabeth laughed. Thalia picked up the package, ripped it open and took out five books.

"'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief', I'm guessing that's the first one, eh?" Thalia said, looking through the books, "Who wants to read?"

"I will," Athena said. Everyone settled down as Athena opened the book. Annabeth snuggled close to Percy, getting a few odd looks from Athena.

And so the reading began.

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**Hello, again. Sorry it's so bad, the rest will be better, I promise! It's really late, so I'm sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes. Please review!**

**Nighty night,**

**Z.3.S.**


	2. I Accidently Vaporize My Maths Teacher

**Disclaimer – I don't own the PJO series. Since when would I?**

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**"I Accidentally Vaporize my Maths Teacher," **Athena read.

"This is never good," Nico sighed.

Poseidon groaned, whilst Athena smirked at the sea-gods discomfort.

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

"Obviously, who does?" Thalia rolled her eyes.

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:**

"Run for cover! Percy is giving advice!" Nico screamed, diving under Thalia's seat.

Thalia was laughing hard and Apollo and Hermes were snickering at the demi-gods antics. Percy had already decided that he didn't like these books, not one bit. Annabeth giggled at the look on Percy's face.

**close this book right now. Believe what ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

Thalia face took on one of feigned surprise, "OMG, that was actually some good advice... _if_ it would have worked. They come for you anyway, Annabeth was only 7 when they came for her." Nico grinned at Thalia and Aphrodite wanted to squeal when Thalia grinned back.

**Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

The gods glanced at each other, it couldn't be that bad... could it? One look at the suddenly sobered expressions on the demi-gods faces told them it could.

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

"Oh, it happened alright – and it was bloomin' painful!" Percy muttered, it was meant only for Annabeth's ears but all of the female gods heard it too. Percy was now receiving some worried looks.

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before **_**they **_**sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

"But you didn't." Grover pointed out.

"Shut it, Goat-Boy," Percy replied, halfhearted.

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

"Uh, duh!"

**I'm twelve years old. Until a **_**few **_**months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy ****Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

"Are you a troubled kid?" Poseidon asked.

**Am I a troubled kid?**

Everyone chuckled at how much they were the same.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

"Lol, you just called yourself a troubled kid." Nico said, still chuckling.

"Oh, and your not, Death Boy?" Percy retaliated, it would have had more of an effect had his face not been buried in a pillow.

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids**

"And again!" Thalia exclaimed.

**and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

**I know—it sounds like torture.**

"Hey!" All the gods shouted at him. Percy made a rude gesture in their direction.

**Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

"Why, thank you, Percy," Chiron said, smiling at his favorite student.

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"WHAT!" Athena almost screeched at the groaning son of the sea.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

**Boy, was I wrong.**

"Oh no."

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

Everyone was silent for a second then everyone burst into laughter, even Athena let out a small chuckle.

"Dude, if this gets much better, then I'll have to take you on as my apprentice!" Hermes stated, tears in his eyes.

"Not if I get him first!" Apollo said, tears actually streaming down his face.

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

"Dude, you are awesome!" Apollo and Hermes said at the same time.

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

"The apocalypse is coming – Percy _behaving_. RUN!" All of the demi-gods shouted, scaring the gods so much that they jumped a few feet in the air.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover**

"Oh yeah, enter me." Grover grinned at his friend.

**in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

"Ewww!" Aphrodite moaned, disgusted.

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.**

"Thanks, mate. Thanks a lot." Grover said, scowling at Percy. A muffled reply came from the pillow that Percy's head resided in.

**He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Way to blow your cover, G-man," Thalia said, raising her eyes to the heavens.

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. **

"Percy!" Annabeth moaned at her boyfriend, "Can't you just be normal... once?"

Percy raised his head and looked at her.

"Why did I even ask?" Annabeth sighed. Percy gave her a peck on the cheek and pulled her close. Aphrodite was very, _very_ happy.

**The headmaster had threatened me with death**

"WHAT? HE BETTER NOT HAVE!" Most of the demi-gods present screamed but Annabeth and Percy chuckled at them.

**by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"Oh."

**"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

"Eventually, some action." Ares said, rubbing his hands.

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

**"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

"Why, Grover? Why?" Ares asked, bored because of the lack of fighting/death/blood. Everyone ignored him, as always.

**"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.**

"So do I!" Ares almost screamed.

"SHUT UP!" Everyone shouted, even Zeus.

**In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.**

Chiron smiled.

**He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"Longer," Athena corrected him at the same time Annabeth did. They glanced at each other.

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a **_**stele, **_**for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

"Dun, Dun, Dun!" Nico said quietly so that only Thalia could hear. She started laughing and only laughed harder at the looks she was getting.

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. **

Aphrodite flinched.

**She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

"Hmmm, I wonder why..." Thalia said, acting serious but containing laughter.

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Yet again, way to blow your cover." Nico said.

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you **_**shut up**_**?"**

"Not a good idea."

**It came out louder than I meant it to.**

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it.**

"WOW."

**"That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

**"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied.**

"Chiron never is, if he ever was then he wouldn't be the Chiron we know and love." Annabeth said smiling at the centaur who had been like a father to her. Chiron smiled back.

**"And he **_**did **_**this because ..."**

**"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god,**

"God?" Everyone was surprised as Dionysus pulled his face out of 'Wine Weekly' and raised his eyebrow at Percy.

**and—"**

**"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

Lots of snickering.

**"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"**

"Ewww!" Aphrodite said.

**"Ewww!" said one of the girls behind me.**

**"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

"Probably the biggest war in the world and you put it all into one sentence." Artemis shook her head in disbelief.

**Some snickers from the group.**

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids."**

"Not in a job application, in a survival guide." Percy muttered.

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Busted." Apollo muttered.

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

"Weird..."

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

"Duh, half horse here!" Chiron said.

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

"Not the correct answer." Athena said, "Half credit."

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

"Put it my list of "To-Do's," Teach Chiron better subject changers," Hermes said, gaining a few laughs.

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

"When do they not?" Artemis asked.

"Quite often actually," Percy replied, "Yeah, maybe most are doofuses, like Hercules. He is no longer my hero, not after I found out what he did to Zoe. But a few of us aren't too bad. Like Grover, or Nico here." Artemis looked like she was about to ask how he knew about what had happened to Zoe but Percy said, "Later."

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew what was coming.**

"What is?"

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"Older."

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

"I know now." Percy said, seeing everyone about to give him an explanation.

**"Oh."**

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

"I had to, Percy," Chiron said.

"I know."

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever **_**lived, **_**and their mother, and what god they worshiped.**

"Harsh, Chiron. Harsh." Apollo said, flinching.

**But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be **_**as good; **_**he expected me to be **_**better. **_**And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"I was," he said, the very same look on his face as had been at that moment.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.**

"What are you 2 fighting about now?" Hestia asked. The brothers shrugged.

**We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from **_**that **_**school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

"And your calling yourself a loser freak _again_!" Thalia exclaimed.

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."**

"Stating the obvious, as always." Nico said.

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

"It was a nice apple." Grover said, humming contently. Juniper laughed at her boyfriends (or is it goat-friends?) appetite.

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

"Aww, mummies boy." Hephaestus teased the demi-god.

"Hey, I love my mum and I'm proud of it." Percy said loudly. Artemis looked at him like he was from another planet.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

Percy, Thalia and Nico growled deep down in their throats. Annabeth was gritting her teeth.

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"Yum! Liquid Cheetos!" Grover was in a little world of his own.

"Grover!" Juniper exclaimed, playfully slapping her satyrs face.

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

"Oh yeah, it's Water-Boy time."

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

**"—the water—"**

**"—like it grabbed her—"**

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"**

"Oh. Crap."

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

"That wasn't the right thing to say!" Hermes said.

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

"Freaky." Hestia said, glancing at both demi-god and god.

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. **_**I **_**pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

"Almost. Not quite but almost." Grover muttered.

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But—"**

**"You—**_**will**_—**stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "**_**Now**_**."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

"And that is deluxe." Nico whispered, loudly.

Ares snorted, "I doubt that this idiot could scare someone with a glare, or even kill a kindly-one." He then shifted uncomfortably under said glare.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

"Impatient is right, she must have forgotten to go human speed," Annabeth muttered.

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

**I wasn't so sure.**

"Impressive, Percy. Very observant." Chiron commented, nodding his head in approval.

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

"Okay, maybe not so impressive."

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"Grover, give me some credit. You should know by now that I am much more observant than I look." Chiron said, sounding hurt.

"Sorry, Chiron." Grover said, sounding sheepish.

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

"It was never the plan."

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

Poseidon groaned, why was it always his children.

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

"Hey!" Zeus said, looking offended.

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

"Percy always gets away with it!" Nico moaned under his breath.

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

"Not true." Percy whispered.

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

"I take that back." Percy said in an attempt to lighten the mood.

**Thunder shook the building.**

Everyone glanced at Zeus.

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must have found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.**

"Really, Perce? Really?" Thalia's eyes were raised to the ceiling yet again.

**Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on **_**Tom Sawyer **_**from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

"Sea-spawn will remain sea-spawn." Athena muttered under her breath before continuing on.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

"I hate deadlines!" Nico and Hades said at the same time. They glanced at each other.

"Like father, like son." Percy whispered in Annabeth's ear.

**Then the weirdest thing happened.**

"Then or now?" Annabeth asked, looking up at Percy.

"At the time, it was the weirdest thing ever but now it's barely in the top 100." Percy replied.

**Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

"Kindly One!" Hades exclaimed.

"HADES!" Poseidon yelled.

"DAD! CALM DOWN," Percy had to shout to get his dad's attention, "So, Ares, what were you saying about not being able to kill a Fury?"

"Don't say the name!" Artemis warned.

"Sorry, but I really don't care." Percy said shrugging it off.

**Then things got even stranger.**

Nico groaned, "Is that even possible?"

"With Percy, yes." Thalia said.

"I wasn't looking for an answer."

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

Percy pulled said pen out of his pocket.

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

At this point, Percy made Riptide into a sword. Artemis looked astonished that Percy had such a valuable thing to one of her Hunters.

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

_Wimp, _Ares thought.

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

Collective intake of breath.

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. **_**Hisss!**_

Collective release of breath.

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan.**

"Not a bad description." Hades said, nodding his approval.

**She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

Percy was about to return Riptide to it's pen form, but decided against it. Instead, he turned it into Zoe's hair pin. Artemis looked about ready to faint as he smiled sadly and placed the pin in Annabeth's hair. Annabeth smiled up at him, sadly. This made Artemis wonder, _In the future, what happens to Zoe?_

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

A few of the more immature gods snickered, Artemis slapped them on the back of the head.

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

"Who?" Thalia said, frowning.

**I said, "Who?"**

"Freaky."

**"Our **_**teacher.**_ **Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

"The Mist." Percy said, seeing the questioning look on Nico's face.

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"You need to learn how to lie, G-man." Percy said, chuckling.

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

Again, all eyes turned to Zeus.

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

"Now Chiron, Chiron can lie." Annabeth said, laughing.

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The maths teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"That's the end of the chapter," Athena said.

"I don't believe your first monster was a Fury, Jackson. You never told me that." Thalia said to Percy. He shrugged.

"Go see if Nico's hungry. I need to go talk to Artemis." Percy replied, a little distracted. The gods were talking among themselves on the events of the first chapter. Percy beckoned Artemis over and they walked outside, Annabeth accompanying them.

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**So, what do you guys think, should I continue it? Love it? Hate it? Want to kill me for some random reason? Whatever it is, tell me in a review. Thanks.**

**Z.E.S**


	3. Heart to Mind

**Hi, guys. Sorry – I forgot about Chiron! I didn't put him in, let's say he zapped himself there by accident...somehow. Thanks for all the reviews – your all amazing! So here's the next chapter, I've decided to continue this story. Yay!**

**I'll shut up now...**

**Disclaimer – Since when was I a dude? Seriously...**

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Percy, Annabeth and Artemis walked through Olympus. Annabeth led them to a small park that was deserted, yet beautiful. Annabeth had had to learn Olympus back to front to re-build it. When they arrived at the center of the park they sat at a park table, Annabeth and Percy on one side, Artemis on the other.

"So... how do you know about Zoe and Hercules, Perseus?" Artemis asked, Percy flinched at his real name, which he never told anyone.

"I – we met Zoe, on a quest. Fourth book, I'd guess. Annabeth here had gone missing and it had something to do with the Hunters. It was there quest. You and the Hunters had saved me, Thalia, Nico and Grover but Annabeth had been captured. I cried, we all cried." Percy began, "You recruited a new demi-god, Bianca, Nico's sister. I wasn't aloud to go. It wasn't all about getting Annabeth back. The titan that held up the sky was – was rising." he stumbled a little, "Zoe was the quest leader, and she didn't pick me. So, naturally, after they had left, I followed suit. I followed them until they worked out I was there. At that point, they were struggling against a very big lion/sphinx thing."

Annabeth took up the story, "He saved them from dieing. Meanwhile, the General was growing zombie skeletons, which followed them all the way to Mount. Tam, until they were killed. Along the way to Mt. Tam they lost Bianca when she sacrificed herself for them." Percy had a look on his face which said – do not ask, I will cry.

"A new Hunter and demi-god died. You still haven't said how you found out about Zoe." Artemis said, quietly.

"When we arrived at Mt. Tam we knew something was up. Our enemies were docked there. Annabeth's dad helped us get there before sunset. Along the way, I had gained Zoe's trust, working out a large amount of the story before she told me. When we arrived at the top of Mt. Tam, we saw the 'General', who is also the titan who holds the sky. And you, Artemis were holding up the sky. To begin with, Luke, our enemy, took the sky. Annabeth took it from him. You took it from her. I took it from you, we worked together to trick the titan back under the sky. Her father had cast her aside during the battle, killing her." At this a single tear rolled out of Percy's closed eyes. Artemis looked at him with grudging respect and awe. He was not like normal _men._

"C'mon, Perce. We had best get back." Annabeth whispered to Percy, who nodded.

"I'm sorry, Artemis. I know her death will hit you hard." And he walked of, shoulders slumped, in the direction of the throne room.

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**Sorry for the late update and the short chapter. Please don't kill me! Please review. Reviews make me update faster. Please? Pretty please with a fanfic on top?**

**Z.E.S**


	4. Three Old Ladies Knit The Socks of Death

"**Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death,"**

"Why you? Why is it always you?" Annabeth asked, looking up at Percy. Percy shrugged, leaning down and giving her a peck on the lips. Aphrodite did a mental happy-dance.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly.**

"Like what?" Apollo asked. Everyone ignored him.

**This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me.**

"It's the - "

"Mist, I know," Percy interrupted Juniper. He had a feeling he'd be doing that a lot now.

**The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our maths teacher since Christmas.**

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

"You are one." Dionysus said, not looking up from his new Wine Weekly. That gained a few laughs from the demi-gods.

"If anyone would know, Mr D would," Nico remarked, laughing. Mr D acted like he hadn't heard a thing.

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

**Almost.**

"Oh, Grover," Dionysus groaned, under his breath.

**But Grover couldn't fool me.**

"He never could." Percy remarked, giving his closest friend a smile.

**When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, and then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

**Something was going on. Something **_**had **_**happened at the museum.**

Lots of rolling of eyes.

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

"Still does," Percy murmured, gaining a few sympathetic looks.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood.**

Everyone turned to look at the two brothers. They shrugged.

**One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy.**

"Oopsie daisy," Poseidon said, after gaining Annabeth's death glare.

**One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from D's to F's.**

Athena looked ready to faint. She couldn't believe that her daughter was dating someone who got D's and F's.

**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

"It means - " Hermes started.

"I know." Percy cut him off.

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

"Punk!" Ares snorted. The demi-gods glanced at each other.

"Like father, like son," Percy declared, face serious. The demi-gods burst into laughter, even Chiron let out a small chuckle. **(If you don't get it, he's referring to Clarisse as a boy.)**

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

Percy growled instinctively.

**And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view** **of the woods outside my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

"I didn't have to," said Grover, proudly. Percy shook his head in bewilderment, but satyrs will be satyrs.

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for.**

"Thank you, Percy."

**I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

"WOW!" Thalia exclaimed, "Percy is actually using his few scattered brains!"

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the **_**Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology **_**across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon,**

"That's easy," Annabeth said, "You've met both of them more than once."

"I know now, but I didn't know then!"

**or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

"That's hard, even for me." Annabeth grumbled.

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. **_**I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.**_

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

"Good," Athena snapped, glaring at the demi-god.

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

"Hahaha, Percy – trying to impress a teacher! Rare!" Nico exclaimed.

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said,**

_**"...**_ **worried about Percy, sir."**

"Aren't we all?" Annabeth sighed.

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult. I inched closer.**

"Good," Hermes whispered, "Get close, but go slowly."

**"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the **_**school**_**! Now that we know for sure, and **_**they **_**know too—"**

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

Thalia and Annabeth snorted, "Percy will never grow up. Ever."

"Unless someone I love is in danger," Percy corrected, "And that's been very...common lately. Or had been. Or will be. Oh, I don't know!" Percy said, playing with Annabeth's hair. Athena wondered if anything happened to _her_ daughter in the future.

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead line— "**

"Deadline? What deadline?" Zeus asked, curious.

The demigods did not answer, but the Gods were worried by their suddenly grim expressions.

**"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

**"Sir, he **_**saw **_**her... ."**

**"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

"Not _quite,_" Percy pointed out to Chiron had been a bit quiet.

"No," He amended, "Not _quite_." He threw a pointed glance at Grover, who was squirming uncomfortably in his seat whilst Juniper was in a fit of silent giggles next to him.

**"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

**"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"**

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

"Oops?" Percy said lamely because of the look Hermes, god of thieves was giving him.

"Never give away your location!" he almost hissed. He sounded so like Medusa that Percy didn't know whether to laugh of grimace, but the decision was made for him, by Grover, who started laughing his little goat laugh. Every demi-god had soon joined in, "Dude, the Medusa resemblance there was scary." Nico explained, seeing the confused and slightly scared look on the god of messengers. The gods glanced at each other... how could these demi-gods laugh over something like that. How could they survive it?

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

"Better, retreat." Hermes was muttering to himself.

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

"Hmm... that's cause it was, Seaweed Brain!" Annabeth said, laughing.

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

"Please, oh please do not move for a while." Percy winked at the god.

**A few seconds later I heard a slow **_**clop-clop-clop, **_**like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, and then moved on.**

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

"I should've looked more carefully." Chiron scolded himself.

"It was cause you were looking for monsters, not snooping demi-gods," Percy told his mentor, teacher and friend.

**"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."**

**"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

**"Don't remind me."**

"Grover!" Annabeth exclaimed,"Not you too?"

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

**"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

**Just... tired. I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.**

"I know!" Percy said, seeing about 10 mouths opening to tell him that cause Grover was a satyr they could feel emotions.

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

"When are you not?" Grover asked nobody in particular.

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,**

"Ugh," Nico sounded horrified, "I'd rather face the Minotaur again!" Hades looked at his son, was it him as well as this Perseus?

**my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."**

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

"Dead," Thalia and Annabeth said together. Artemis had a small frown on her face, _Why is my future Hunter so.. protective of this... boy?_ She thought.

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

**"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

**My eyes stung.**

"Awww." said Ares, making a pathetic pouty face. Annabeth stood up, walked over to him and slapped him, hard, in the face. There was a stunned silence, but after a glance at Percy, who was standing behind Annabeth, and Athena, who looked ready to kill.

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

"Ouch. That would really hurt," Aphrodite sighed.

**"Right," I said, trembling.**

**"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"**

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

Percy winced at the memory.

**"Percy—"**

**But I was already gone.**

"Oops."

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

"Not the clothes!" Aphrodite squealed.

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were **_**rich **_**juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

"Not from a family of nobodies," Hera mused.

"I didn't know back then," Percy shrugged.

"Poseidon may be a nobody," Zeus scoffed, "But definitely not me. I'm amazing."

"Soooooo like Thalia," Nico sniggered, earning a shock.

The four demigods had to stifle their laughter so hard that it hurt.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

"At least they asked," Juniper pipped.

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

**"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**

"Or maybe not," Artemis frowned.

"Juvenile idiots," Thalia growled. No one cared to tell her that they kinda meant the same thing.

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.**

"He should," Dionysus said, "If he didn't, then he'd be caught off guard, and those brats would never reach camp."

Everyone was surprised at this statement, as this was completely unlike Mr. D.

"Mr. D, did you just defend someone who is not you?" Thalia asked.

"What are you talking about, Tammy?" Mr. D asked, "I was just sitting here bored and wishing I could drink some wine. White wine. Or red. Or some rosy..."

But the "damage" was done. Percy smiled. Mr. D did care, just that he didn't like to show it. Ever.

**Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

"You gave me a bloomin' heart-attack!" Grover said, to the room at large.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much **_**did **_**you hear?"**

**"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

"You are a very sarcastic child," Hermes pointed out, "I value that."

**He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers …"**

**"Grover—"**

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."**

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

"Am not!" Grover exclaimed, loudly.

"Grover, again, you're a really, really, _really_ bad liar." All the demi-gods + Juniper said at the exact same time, ending up laughing.

**His ears turned pink.**

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

**Grover Underwood**

**Keeper**

**Half-Blood Hill**

**Long Island, New York**

**(800) 009-0009**

**"What's Half—"**

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."**

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or...or if you need me."**

**"Why would I need you?"**

"Harsh," Nico whistled.

"I didn't mean it!"

**It came out harsher than I meant it to.**

"See!"

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me.**

"Awww, you little cutie!" Aphrodite squealed.

**And here he was acting like he was the one who defended **_**me.**_

**"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?"**

"Yeah, that's a smart question, Seaweed Brain!" Annabeth said, sarcasticly.

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**

"EW!" Aphrodite gagged.

**The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

Annabeth squeezed Percy tight, she new this was hard for him. Percy smiled at her gratefully.

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice**_**. **_**There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, ****knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

"Oh. Crap." Nico muttered.

Thalia started to freak out, "Please tell me they're not what I think they are."

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

"It was..._his..._ string, right?" Annabeth asked.

Percy closed his eyes for a moment before nodding, his expression blank. A totally complete blank that it scared everyone. Thalia put her head onto Nico's shoulder and whimpered slightly in fear and worry. She had guessed what string Annabeth and Percy mentioned. A wave of sadness almost overwhelmed her, _Luke,_ thankfully Nico was there to steady her. She had been so engrossed in her own thoughts that she didn't notice the blush that crept up Nico's cheeks.

Of course, that didn't go unnoticed by Aphrodite. **(A.N. -Poor demi-gods, I love messing with them, it makes life soooooo much more fun!)**

_Oh my Zeus. A huntress and a son of Hades. Forbidden love, so beautiful!_ Aphrodite jumped in her own thoughts.

"Wait, back up a bit here. I'm confused. What on earth and below are you all talking about? Who's string is that, if it's not Percy's?" Hermes asked.

"...Let's just say it was the string of the other Hero of Olympus." Annabeth replied.

And that confirmed Thaila's worse thoughts, but only confused the Gods even more. Percy's faced darkened greatly as he heard his girlfriend call that... _idiot_ a hero.

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

At this, Annabeth whimpered slightly. The worst thing for Percy was not knowing if it was because he was in danger, or because it was _his _string.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"**

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

**"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

"Typical Percy, eh, Nico?" Thalia muttered, her head still resting on his shoulder. When she realized she _blushed_. A Hunter, not just any Hunter; Artemis' lieutenant Hunter, was blushing. Aphrodite squealed in her head. Thalia hurriedly sat u straight. Artemis frowned suspiciously, glancing at the love goddess.

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.**

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there." "Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

"Percy..." Chiron groaned. Thalia and Nico sniggered.

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that **_**snip **_**across four lanes of traffic.**

Silence made a sound louder than words, in Percy's head. And the silence was absolute. He closed his eyes, hearing that same _snip _again in his head.

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla. At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

"Not good," Hestia noted, from the back of the hall, "Not good at all."

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

**"Grover?"**

**"Yeah?"**

**"What are you not telling me?"**

"Well..." Athena started.

"I know!"

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

**"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds.**

"Yep," Grover winced.

**He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**

**"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.**

"Observant," Artemis praised.

"Er, thanks, Artemis." obviously Percy wasn't used to a god praising him instead of trying to kill him from the looks he was getting from the other demi-gods, "What?" he said, "They don't always want me dead... sometimes." More looks, "Fine then – never! I never get praise from a god or goddess that isn't admiring what I'd look like dead." Now he was getting looks from the gods. He gave up, throwing his hands in the air.

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

**"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

"Way to go, Mr. Obvious," Thalia and Nico said, at the exact same time.

**"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

Zeus fumed.

**"What last time?"**

**"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

Thalia sighed, "It. Was. Not. Your. Fault." She yelled at Grover, "Get that into your goats brain, Grover!" When she sat back down Nico, looking nervous of a shock, put his arm around her. To everyone's surprise she didn't object, just sort of lent into him.

**"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

"Why do I have a bad feeling, all of a sudden?" **(Guess who said that and I'll read all your stories and give you a mention in the next chapter!)**

"We all have a bad feeling." Annabeth muttered.

**Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

**"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

"Yes," almost everyone said.

Percy shivered, "I know, I watched it happen!"

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"End of the chapter, who wants to read next?"

"I will," said Aphrodite.

**###$$$%%%^^^&&&***((()))_+++===**

**So... what do you guys think? Like it? Hate it? Love it? Can't live without it? Just want to type random things? Tell me in a review. Please? Sorry about the slow update, but these take forever to type up! R&R – your already halfway there, you can do it.**

**Later,**

**Z.E.S**


	5. Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants

Chapter 4: **Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants**

Aphrodite made a gagging motion, horrified by the terrible fashion disaster while the demigods snickered.

"What a..._weird_ title," Poseidon raised his brow.

"That is definitely a sight I would never forget," Percy laughed.

"Ew the mental image!" Nico gagged jokingly.

But Aphrodite, Thalia and Annabeth did look a little green by now. Even Poseidon frowned.

"Can't that goat – Wait! Your a satyr, and if Percy doesn't know that..." He trailed off.

"An idiot," Ares rolled his eyes, "Not a warrior, and idiot."

Nico, Thalia and the other half-humans except for Percy started laughing, very hard.

"I agree, he's not _that_ good," Athena pipped in, smiling at Percy's red face.

"I didn't know anything then!"

"He doesn't know anything now." Nico muttered to Thalia. Aphrodite suddenly became very interested in the two of them, which they failed to notice.

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"Percy," Annabeth groaned.

"Sorry about that, G-man."

"It's not a problem, Perce. I hadn't really expected you to stay because... well, your you." Grover winked.

Annabeth rolled her eyes at Percy, "Why must you always do things like this?"

"Like what?" Percy asked, confused.

"Like be really rash."

"And when have I done that?" Percy asked, smiling mischievously at his girlfriend.

"Well, you ditched camp to come save Artemis and me once, even when it wasn't your quest. You attempted to kill a Minotaur because Hades had kidnapped your mother -"

Grover cut Annabeth off, "He _did_ kill a Minotaur cause Hades kidnapped his mother."

"you chased Grover into the Bermuda Triangle because a giant cyclops wanted to marry him. You wandered in the Labyrinth to save Camp. Blew up a mountain. Denied Calypso's island. Found Pan. Swam in the flamin' Styx and -"

"Okay, okay. We get it!" Percy exclaimed, red from embarasment.

Aphrodite smirked happily. She was _so_ right about these two.

**I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to he sixth grade?"**

"What? It always was!" Grover said when 12 pairs of immortal eyes turned towards him.

**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.**

The hall burst into loud laughter.

"Oh, Grover," Nico sighed.

**Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

"Awesome!" Nico yelled.

"Wonderful!" Thaila agreed.

"Amazing!" Annabeth smiled happily in memory.

"Great!" Grover said. Percy smiled at his friends, Juniper nodding along in agreement.

Athena didn't really know why she was bothered that at the mention of the mortals name Poseidon beamed at his son. She shouldn't feel jealous of her. She hated the man... she thought.

Aphrodite smirked. Ah, being delusional is such a beautiful thing.

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world,**

**which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.**

The demigods + Grover and Juniper decided to glare at the book.

Poseidon had a feeling he _really_ wouldn't want to hear this part.

"Percy, that theory applies to you, too, you know?" Annabeth told her boyfriend.

Percy grinned sheepishly, "I'm not on the 'best people' list."

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five,**

Everyone glared at Zeus.

**and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her.**

Artemis muttered, "See, men are horrible." Everyone was surprised that Percy was nodding his head in agreement.

**She wanted to be a novelist,**

"Why would she of all women in love with you?" Athena asked the sea god.

Poseidon shrugged,"I don't know." he whispered.

**so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

Percy was receiving very sympathetic looks from everyone on his mothers behalf. Poseidon was muttering to himself and, yet again, Athena had to push down a rising feeling of jealousy.

**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

Poseidon blushed while the others (except for Athena, who felt jealous of the mortal woman for the third time.) laughed.

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile.**

The rest of the gods were surprised, and the felt a new thing. It was an alien feeling to them - _guilt_.

Thalia, Nico and Annabeth avoided their parents' gazes.

**My mom doesn't like to talk about him because ****it ****makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

Poseidon sighed.

**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

"What?" Percy and Poseidon said at the same time as each of them got asking glances from the others, "It gave me _some _hope!" Percy continued, stubbornly. Poseidon looked a little bit sheepish.

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

"State the obvious, why don't you!" Annabeth rolled her eyes at her boyfriend. Percy winked at her, only irritating her more. Nico and Thalia laughed at her.

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him,**

"Then he became a world class jerk..." Percy muttered under his breath. He wanted the gods to know, his friends to know. They needed to know how hard it was the be a demi-god. Percy just hoped that his story would be a slap in the face for them, stop them using their own children like chessboard pieces.

**then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. **

"Weird..."

**When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe.**

"Seriously Perce?" Nico was amused.

Percy blushed, "I was young."

**I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

Athena started to wonder...

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.**

"He should have some cereal!" Demeter told Dionysus seriously. The wine god just rolled his eyes at his aunt and nodded in agreement.

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

"It wasn't as bad as usual, it looks so much better now..." Percy trailed off.

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

**"Where's my mom?"**

**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**.

"WHAT?" Hestia yelled. Percy shrugged.

"No _welcome back_, no _good to see you_, _how has your life been the last 6 months,_ but he asked you for cash?" Thaila fumed.

**That was it. No **_**Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**_

"Even weirder..." Apollo said to Hermes, who sniggered.

**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something..**

Aphrodite look ready to kill.

Poseidon was about to kill.

And Percy was sniggering at the memory.

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

There was silence

"_He did not._" Artemis said very quietly. Annabeth was looking up at Percy from where her head lay on his lap, a question in her eyes. Percy nodded his head very slightly so that only Thalia, Nico, Annabeth, Grover and Artemis saw.

Percy shut his eyes tight, "Well... it happened once. He had a broken nose for a while afterwards, so it never happened again."

There was a stunned silence. Everyone blinked, unable to believe that someone as young as Percy must have been would be able to beat up an old, fat guy.

Then they all laughed.

**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

Athena then went into overdrive, wondering...

**"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

"He could do math?" Hermes asked, sarcasticly.

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy.**

**"Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

"He was killed a few years ago... stabbed whilst out in the streets..." Percy informed everyone.

**"Am I **_**right**_**?**_**" **_**Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

"Urgh," Artemis rolled her eyes, "Men!"

**"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

"I'll make sure he'll never win," Dionysus told his magazine.

"Pointless," the magazine replied, much to everyone's surprise,"The kid got rid of him ages ago... in his time, anyway."

**"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

"I'm anything but 'Brain Boy'," Percy said to nothing in particular. So he was surprised when the magazine replied, "No! I thought you where Sherlock!" Loudly and sarcasticly.

Everyone laughed.

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study."**

Athena and Annabeth snorted as they rolled their eyes at the obviously miss-informed book.

People smiled at their similarities and a few groaned at them.

**He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

"Yuck," Aphrodite wrinkled her nose.

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

"Ah sarcasm, your best feature," Nico snickered. Percy winked at him.

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds,**

Everyone shivered.

**or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

Everyone shivered, yet again.

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

"That's sweet!" Aphrodite squealed.

"That's weak!" Ares growled.

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**

Aphrodite squealed.

Hera smiled.

Artemis was confused.

"Weak, couldn't win a fight," Ares snorted in disgust.

"What's up with loving your mother? I really don't care what you think... I honestly don't care what any of you think. Except Artemis, Atena and Hestia."

Hestia beamed at Percy while Artemis was even more confused. Ares was doused with freezing salt water. Athena was really getting confused about this demigod-that-dated-er-daughter. He was so...different from the others.

Finally, the reading continued.

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

"That is so cute!" Aphrodite squealed.

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

**I gritted my teeth.**

Everyone in the room copied the book-Percy.

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire,**

"Or a god."

**not to some jerk like Gabe.**

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.**

**I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

**Until that trip to the museum ...**

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

**"No, Mom."**

"Don't lie to your mother," Hermes said, "It never works."

**I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

"She knew me so well." Percy grinned.

"Well, she's meant to, Perce, she's your mother..." Annabeth said.

Athena looked guilty. Looking at his friends Percy couldn't help but say, "Your mother was on Olympus, Annabeth. Yours was killed Nico. Yours too, Thals. Your father hated you, Annabeth. Yours was in the Underworld, Nico. Yours was in Olympus, Thalia. You guys never really knew, did you? What it was like. Having somebody who was always there for you... I'm so sorry, for it all. Even you Grover, your father and uncle lost trying to find Pan... sorry." He whispered the last bit. All the gods suddenly looked very sheepish. Artemis, who had no children, looked even more confused than normal.

**"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

Percy smiled, he loved that place.

**"Three nights—same cabin."**

**"When?"**

**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

Everyone growled.

**I wanted to punch him, **

"Please do!" Juniper piped up, surprising everyone.

**but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

Everyone groaned, disappointed.

**"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

**"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

"If he values he own health..." The threat was left hanging.

**"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

"Your mothers good, Jackson." Hermes told Percy, "Bribery... very good form of persuasion."

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

Aphrodite looked horrified

**"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

"He cares more for a car?"

Percy and Grover found themselves laughing uncontrollably.

**"We'll be very careful."**

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, **

Suspense...

**I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

Everyone laughed.

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

Artemis narrowed her eyes. _It couldn't be that she..._

**"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

Everyone burst out laughing again.

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

"As if he had a brain," Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"It was pea-sized."

**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game.**

"What an idiot," Apollo shook his head.

"Jerk."

"Buffoon."

**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

"She could see through the mist," Poseidon explained.

"You pick good women, Uncle," Hermes said.

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car.**

"He should have helped!" Hestia commented.

**He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

"Like he'd be the one driving," Thalia muttered.

**Like I'd be the one driving.**

"Weird." Nico said.

**I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

Percy and Grover glanced at each other, trying not to laugh again at the memory of what happened to that car.

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon.**

The gods stared at Percy in surprise while the demigods laughed at the mental image.

"That should go on YouTube, it'd get watched all over the world." Nico said, between laughs.

**Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

"Yes, run." Hermes chuckled,"Not to bad."

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**

Annabeth and Athena shivered.

**and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**

"And that bothered you?" Annabeth asked, surprised.

"No."

**I loved the place.**

Everyone snickered.

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

"That's so sweet," Aphrodite sighed dreamily.

"Shut it!" Poseidon and Percy said at the same time.

_Like father, like son._ Hera thought.

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

Poseidon mentally sighed at the memory of her eyes.

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

Nico stomach grumbled.

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

"Blue's my color." Zeus pointed out.

Thalia palm-faced, "No!" she said, sarcasticly.

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went** out **of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"A rebellious streak?" Nico's eyes widened,"Dude, have you met your mother?"

"Hey! I hadn't met Medusa yet, okay?" Percy joked.

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. **

Everyone glared at Zeus,"Oops?" Zeus said/asked, paling slightly.

**She told me about the books she wanted to write someday,**

"Like what?" Athena asked, interested.

"She's into Greek Mythology." Percy said, laughing at the goddess' offended look.

**when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

Nico broke down into a fit of laughter, imagining Tyson+Candy Shop+Money. The gods gave him some weird looks, he managed to choke out,"Tyson!" the gods just looked more confused whilst the other demi-gods caught on, laughing as hard as Nico was.

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

"Aww," the love goddess thought.

**"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

"Definitely still got to hoots for Poseidon," Aphrodite smirked.

Poseidon blushed. Everyone laughed at him.

**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

"More than that, now."

**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"**

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**"But... he knew me as a baby."**

**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

Poseidon looked at his son, regret plain in his eyes.

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

Ares sniggered.

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...**

**I felt angry at my father.**

Poseidon winced.

"Ouch," Thalia winced.

"Hey, you can't say much! Your the one that asked to move into the Hunter's cabin when you where told to stay in your dad's!" Percy laughed.

The gods were left to wonder if all their children went through the same thing. After seeing the young demi-gods expressions they knew the answer to the unasked question. A few sighed, barely above a whisper. The following silence spoke louder than words.

**Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

Poseidon smiled sadly.

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

**"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."**

**"Because you don't want me around?"**

"Percy!" Hera gasped.

**I regretted the words as soon as they were out. Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

"Good, you regretted it." Hera nodded, still a bit exasperated.

**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

"Even if it was a bad thing, Percy would never be normal." Nico snickered. He got a few confused looks so he found himself having to explain that Percy was 'good' but he was less normal than good, and he still got a few looks.

**"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

**"Safe from what?"**

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

Everyone turned to Poseidon, who shrugged.

"I sent him to keep an eye on Percy, if you'll pardon the pun," he winked.

**Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

"Impressive," a few of the gods mumbled. Hermes looked offended. Percy and Artemis both scowled at the mention of Hercules.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

"Yeah, and hurt your mother." Athena sniggered.

The four demigods made no attempt to answer the goddess of wisdom, but everyone was angered but Athena's words. It's not that they wanted to endanger them, but they were all that they ever had.

Percy finally spoke up, "We don't have much, in life. Our mortal parents are the only solid things outwith camp. The gods – you people here – never really cared. That's what, ultimately, caused your downfall. Until we saved your sorry butts... _again._ You don't understand and you never will." He hesitated, "Then you get to camp, meet your family, make new friends," he gestured to Thalia, Nico, Grover and Juniper, "Or a girlfriend,"he wrapped his arm around Annabeth, " and teachers." He nodded in Chiron's direction, "there are more, but most are dead. Silena, Beckendorf, Zoe, Bianca, Pan and... Luke. There are so many more, but those are just my closest friends."

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**

**"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

**My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born—**

Poseidon winced.

**talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

"She never mentioned before?" Athena's eyes widen, "That's terrible!"

**"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."**

"It's more than that," Annabeth sighed.

"I know now," Percy smiled weakly, already disliking the books ignorance.

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

"Woman's best weapon," Apollo joked. He got such a look from his twin that he looked like he wanted to join Kronos in tarturus.

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

"Not _again_!" all the demi-gods groaned. Percy shrugged.

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

Everyone looked at Zeus and Poseidon, who just shrugged, "Not our fault!" they said at the same time.

"Jinx!" Apollo exclaimed.

**The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

Everyone looked at Hades, who also shrugged, "I don't know!"

While the demigods looked at one another with dark looks,"It's alright dad, there are things worse than the gods."

**I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion.**

_What's that? _Athena wondered, hating that this demi-god knew more than her.

**I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes,**

"AH! I win!" Zeus yelled, childishly.

"See what I mean?" Poseidon whispered to the others not-so-softly.

Everyone rofled while Zeus glared at them.

**and I screamed, **_**No!**_

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said,**

**"Hurricane."**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.**

"Idiot, brother," Zeus said, very aloft.

"Shut up!" Poseidon snapped playfully at his older brother.

Everyone laughed. Zeus wasn't pleased.

**Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

**Everyone shivered.**

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

"Monster?" Thalia's eyes widened sarcasticly. Percy pointedly ignored her.

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

**Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"Then who else could he be?" Nico asked, confused.

Annabeth and Percy wondered if Nico was kidding. Apparently, not. Thalia full-out laughed.

**"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

Thalia snickered, "Percy isn't one to think."

"Hey! I can think!" Percy yelled indignantly.

"Sure, whatever you say," Thalia smiled, like she was talking to a two year old girl.

Percy growled menacingly, and all the water in the room lifted up and drenched Thalia, who fought back by zapping lightning at her cousin. 100 volts. 500 volts. 1000 volts. Only then did Thalia give up.

"Stupid Curse," she grumbled. Percy winked at her.

"I don't believe you fell for that!" Percy told his cousin and closest friend.

"Screw you!" Came the reply.

**My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

**I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

"Percy never understands anything, hence the reason I call him Kelp Head, Annabeth calls him Seaweed Brain and Juniper calls him Water Boy!" Thalia declared.

_**"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" **_**he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you **_**tell **_**her?"**

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly.**

"You would! Your a flippin-"

"I didn't know at that time!"

**I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—**

"Ew!" Aphrodite wrinkled her nose,"Grover, I'm giving you a makeover. Tomorrow. Today. Soon."

"Gross," Demeter nodded her head,"Cereal should make up for that."

Everyone groaned.

**and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be ...**

"Is what?" Apollo asked.

Athena face-palmed for having such an idiotic brother.

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: **_**"Percy. **_**Tell me **_**now**_**!"**

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. **_**Go**_**!"**

Nico groaned, "I have a bad feeling."

"Remember what my first monster was?" Percy asked, Nico nodded, "That will be next."

**Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

Percy winced as he remembered what happened next.

"That's the end of the chapter, who's next?"

"Me!" Thalia said.

**So so so so so so so so so so so so so sorry I haven't updated in 4ever and a day. I'm on holiday right now, had to finish the year at school, go camping 3 times, talk to my friend who visited the Queen and a few other things. I'm so sorry! Please don't kill me. And yes, I am British, no, I don't know anyone named Sadie and thank you very much for the ideas! So sorry, again.**

**Will update ASAP,**

**I-W-E-Y-Y-L-T**


	6. My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting

"**My Mother Teaches me Bullfighting," **Thalia read.

"Why do I have a funny feeling I don't want to here this?" Poseidon asked the room in general.

"Because you don't." Percy told him. And with that, Thalia began to read.

"**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

"Yeah, your mom drives like a nutter when she can see a light at the end of the tunnel." Grover said, "It. Is. So. Fun."

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

Aphrodite looked so horrified at the thought that Percy actually felt sad for her.

**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

"Did you?" Poseidon asked, frowning slightly.

**Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

"Oh."

**"Watching me?"**

"Stalker!"

**"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I **_**am **_**your friend."**

"I needed that, man." Percy told him, "I had no friends at the time... now I have hundreds and about 10x that more enemies. Your still one of the best." Grover smiled at the statement.

**"Urn ... what **_**are **_**you, exactly?" **

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"**

"Bad idea." Dionysus' magazine informed Percy in a sing-song voice.

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty**_**"Blaa-ha-ha!"**_

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

**"Goat!" he cried.**

**"What?"**

**"I'm a **_**goat **_**from the waist down."**

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

"You have a point there, Perce," Annabeth agreed.

_**"Blaa-ha-ha!**_ **There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"**

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

Twelve gods where glaring at the son of the sea, who was whistling and looking anywhere but at the gods.

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a **_**myth, **_**Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

"Great," Apollo said, rolling his eyes, "Now he'll just have more questions."

**"So you **_**do**_** admit**__**there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

**"Of course."**

**"Then why—"**

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

"Organized Konfuzion!"

**"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

"Not good?" Artemis guessed.

"Not good," Percy replied.

**"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

"More like _what's _after me." Percy grumbled.

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"Grover!"

"Hades!"

"Ouch!"

**"Grover!"**

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

"Strawberries?" Dionysus asked.

**"Where are we going?" I asked.**

"Camp Half-Blood, where else?"

"Home."

Half-Blood Hill."

"My tree."

"I KNOW!"

**"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

**"The place you didn't want me to go."**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

"Your always in danger." Annabeth said.

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."**

"You said 'you', that's not gonna help, hun," Juniper told her boyfriend, who sighed.

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

"See?"

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone."**

"No, you didn't."

**"You meant 'you.' As in **_**me.**_**"**

Collective sigh from all demigods present.

**"I meant **_**you, **_**like 'someone.' Not you, **_**you.**_**"**

"Urgh, boys!" Artemis exclaimed.

**"Boys!" my mom said.**

"Awkward." Hermes said, glancing first at Artemis then at Percy, who shrugged.

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

**"What was that?" I asked.**

"I never actually found that out..." Percy trailed off.

**"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

"Let me guess, you don't make it?" Athena asked.

"About right." Grover answered her.

**I didn't know where **_**there **_**was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, ****anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

"Waiting to meet your girl-friend, more like." Nico sniggered. Thalia glanced at him, and _blushed_ slightly. This did not go un-noticed by our favourite love goddess.

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really **_**hadn't **_**been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

"Really? It took you that long?" Thalia asked.

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling **_**boom!,**_**and our car exploded.**

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

"Ouch!"

"Yeah, ouch."

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

"Understatement of the century." Grover muttered.

**"Percy!" my mom shouted.**

**"I'm okay..."**

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

**Lightning.**

"Zeus! My son!"

"I'm sorry, Poseidon, but he had obviously done something to deserve it." Zeus replied haughtily.

_The Lightning Thief... _Athena thought, _No, it couldn't be..._

**That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

"Thanks, man."

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

At this everyone laughed, "Grover." Nico groaned, his head in his hands.

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

"Oh, he has horns, alright."

**I swallowed hard. "Who is—"**

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

"Step by step instructions. Like a little baby." Ares sniggered.

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

"Yay! I was mentioned!" Thalia said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Zeus was scowling at Grover, who looked ready to wet himself.

_**"What?"**_

"Hey!"

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

"Your mother knows her stuff, Peter," Dionysus said.

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

"Your too loyal." Athena pointed out.

"I know, it's got me in to trouble so many times I've lost count," Percy grinned.

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

**"No!" I shouted. "You **_**are **_**coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

More laughter.

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he **_**couldn't **_**be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns …**

"Where horns, yes, Percy, we get it."

**"He doesn't want **_**us**_**," my mother told me. "He wants **_**you. **_**Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

**"But..."**

**"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

"Listen to your mother, Percy. Mother's know best," Hera told Pecy.

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat,**

"Grover the goat?" Grover sounded offended.

**At the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

**"I told you—"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

"Your way to loyal," Apollo said.

"Trust me. We of all people know," Annabeth said, gesturing to the demigods and Grover and Juniper.

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

Grover didn't look to happy at hearing this.

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

"Should I cover my ears at this part?" Poseidon asked his son.

"It depends. You wanna know what happened then listen."

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of **_**Muscle Man **_**magazine**

"And how would you know?" Thalia seemed interested to know. There wasn't really much that Percy could say to that.

—**bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, **

"Really?" Annabeth asked her boyfriend, who shrugged.

**all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear—**

"Ew!" squealed Aphrodite.

**I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms**

Apollo and Hermes cracked up at this.

—**which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

"Ew!" Aphrodite again.

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

"A sharpener? Really, Perce?" Nico sniggered when Thalia asked.

**I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

"Oh, but he is."

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said.**

_Smart woman,_ Athena thought.

**"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

**"But he's the Min—"**

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

"You pick some very smart women, Uncle," Apollo said.

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

Collective groan, "Percy, you never, I repeat, _never_ look back," Nico told him, looking resigned to the fact that his cousin was completely bonkers.

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

"He-" Athena started.

"I know," Percy sighed.

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

Laughter.

**"Shh," I told him. **

"You told me 'shh' when I was asleep?" Grover asked Percy.

"Yes. Yes, I did. Can't we just get this over with?"

**"Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

_Why the hell am I jealous of this mortal?, _Athena asked herself, yet again crushing that alien feeling that was rising in her heart.

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

_**Not a scratch,**_**I remembered Gabe saying.**

"Oops," Thalia said.

**Oops.**

"Weird," Hermes said, looking from one demigod to the other.

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

"Seriously smart!" Artemis nodded in agreement to her brother's out burst.

**"How do you know all this?"**

"Yeah, Poseidon. How does she know all this?" Zeus asked his brother.

Poseidon shrugged,"I may have told her some basics..."

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

"How is that selfish?" Hera asked.

**"Keeping me near you? But—"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

**He'd smelled us.**

"You make it sound like you smell bad..." Nico let it hang.

"I probably did, at the time."

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.**

"Thanks, man. Thanks." Grover sounded like a very unhappy goat.

**The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

**My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

Annabeth squeezed her boyfriends hand, knowing that this would be hard for him.

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.**

"True, you get bet by trees," Juniper said.

**So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

"Crap." Poseidon said, worry etched onto his face.

_You are not jealous, you are not jealous. _Athena kept on telling herself. Thoughts which Aphrodite could hear.

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

"You just need to go past the property-line - "

"I know!"

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear,**

"Wimp." Ares snorted.

**as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

"NO!" Poseidon shouted. Percy had his eyes closed, trying to block the memories.

**"Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

"That's where you get your loyalty from, Perce," Grover murmured.

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.**

"No!" Poseidon looked so sad that everyone felt sorry for him.

**"No!"**

**Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

"Thank you, man."

"Anytime, Grover, anytime."

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

"It just had to be red, didn't it?" Nico muttered to Thalia, who laughed before continuing.

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea**

"Oh, this won't be good."

—**a stupid idea,**

"All your ideas are stupid," Grover pointed out.

"But they always seem to work out," Juniper added.

**But better than no idea at all.**

"Granted." Hermes nodded.

**I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

**But it didn't happen like that.**

"It never happens like that," Percy whispered to his girlfriend, who giggled.

"Oooook, that was very un-Annabethish." Thalia muttered. Percy smiled at her.

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

"How did you do that?"

**How did I do that?**

"The ADHD, it has that effect, battle reflexes." Percy said before anyone else could.

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

"Ouch."

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

**"Food!" Grover moaned.**

"Grover." Thalia groaned.

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light,** **and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.**

"Ha! That won't work!" Ares laughed.

**The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—**_**snap!**_

"But it did." Percy winked at the fuming war god.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

**The monster charged.**

"Here we go."

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

**The monster was gone.**

"Well... that was... new?"

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish.**

Poseidon whimpered.

**I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

"Thanks, Percy. Your a good friend."

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

"I wonder who that is," Nico sniggered.

"A certain daughter of Athena, perhaps?" Thalia asked with a small smile.

Percy rolled his eyes, "Maybe we should get someone to teach you not to state the obvious, Thals?" He achieved a small glare from that one.

Aphrodite started to feel a bond growing connecting the Hunter and the son of the dead. Their joking around and talking might just be something more...

**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

"Oh, it's started already!" Aphrodite squealed. Annabeth's head was buried in Percy's chest. Percy was chuckling a little bit, stroking her hair.

**"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

"Typical Chiron, always straight forward," Juniper laughed.

"That's the end of the chapter," Thalia said, "Who's next?"

Percy, Grover and Apollo shared a glance. "LUNCH!" They shouted.

**^^^###^^^###^^^###^^^###**

**Hello, again, everyone. Who is everyone? This update was faster than usual but don't be expecting a chapter everyday. Did this one whilst on a 5hr plane journey so... that's it. As always, R&R (Your already half-way there!) **

**Thanks,**

**I-W-E-Y-Y-L-T**

**P.S. - What do you think of my new pen-name :P**


	7. Lunch!

**Hello, I'm back! With Lunch! Free Cookies! And a new chapter! Party! And I'm really, really, really, really, really, really, really, REALLY, REALLY, _REALLY_ sorry I haven't updated in like 3 months (or was it 4?)! About 3 people I'm close to died and 3 _other_ people I know announced that they are pregnant, I've just started a new school, have about 10 tests I'm meant to be revising for right now, got X-Mas presents to buy, babies to baby-sit and karate, football and scouts stuff I gotta attend to as well! I realize that really isn't any excuse, but I had to try... Again, I'm really sorry, and I can PROMISE you, another chapter (of the story) up buy next Friday :D**

**DISCLAIMER : Nothing's changed in the last 3(or 4) months... still don't own :'(**

**###^^^###^^^###^^^**

When the Gods of Olympus said 'lunch' they meant 'LUNCH'. The demigods found themselves at an all-you-can-eat buffet with every kind of food from every historic era. Ancient Greek food sat next to British fast-food. Roman Legions' gruel and the beautiful cakes from Germany. The national dishes of Spain and the national dishes of Scotland. Indian curries and Japanese gyoza sat alongside the unique dishes that held the food of China. French baguettes and many more dishes that the demigods couldn't recognize.

"Let's eat!" Grover said. No one didn't do as he said.

Everyone was talking about what had happened so far in the book.

"So, Nico, what do you think so far?" Thalia asked, walking up to Nico from behind.

"Dunno, really. We won't be in it for a while and I don't think it will get really good until then... though you have to admit that we'll have some pretty awesome stuff to slag Percy with after this is over."

"Yeah, that's true... Princess? Really? I don't believe I'm related to that weirdo!" They both laughed, not noticing Aphrodite across the room, looking at them thoughtfully (is that even possible?) for a moment before returning her attention to Ares in front of her.

"I mean, come _on_! Who wants to read about a complete and utter loser like that guy? Really? He's just a completely stupid kid of Poseidon's! Since when did demi-gods like him matter to us?"

"Since they saved our sorry butts, Ares," Poseidon said, approaching Ares and Aphrodite from behind.

"But!"

"No 'buts', Ares!" Aphrodite scolded him, taking her attention away from the duo in the corner... she'd need to talk to Artemis soon...

"I don't like this, Anne," Percy murmured to Annabeth as they began tucking in to their lunch.

"Don't call me that!" Annabeth exclaimed, "But I agree... I don't see the reason the Olympians need to see inside your head – they could use it against you in the future..." She trailed off, losing herself in thought.

Percy snorted, "I'm not afraid of the gods – I'm more afraid of Thalia and Nico getting inside my head!"

Annabeth smirked, "Don't you think that you should be afraid of me being inside your head too?"

Percy stopped eating for a moment, "Not really... I trust you not to slag me all the time, I suppose." He smiled at her.

"You have a son?!" Zeus asked Poseidon angrily.

"You have a daughter?" Poseidon countered.

"Hello-o! I exist as well you know!" Hades butted in.

"And YOU!" The two brother said at the same time.

"What about me?" Hades asked.

"You also have a child!" Zeus shouted.

Percy wandered over and coughed slightly to get the 3 not-all-that-happy gods attentions, "You all fell off the band-wagon at some point so I think it's safe to say your all even." He pointed out calmly.

Zeus had small storm clouds gathering at his shoulders as he restrained himself from lashing out at his nephew, "Your lucky I don't KILL you!" he spat.

"Not really," Percy said, voice not changing, "I didn't do anything to irritate you, except exist, and I can't help that. I've saved your un-thankful godly butt enough times... you asked me to be a god once, my friend. Anyway," he looked away from a fuming Zeus, "I think everyone's finished eating – shall we get back to the book?"

Everyone had stopped to watch the conversation, and all were completely shocked when Zeus huffed like a 3 year old and stomped angrily back to his throne.

"I'll read," Annabeth said calmly, taking Percy's hand like this was a normal occurrence. To them, though, it was.

**! #$%^%$# ! #$%**

**I realize this is really really short, and I'm sorry, but I wasn't sure what else to add :( I'll have the next chapter up by next Friday (or maybe before then...)**

**If anyone's still bothering to read this terrible story then please review, even if it is to tell me that I completely suck and should never write again in my life. And I kinda got mixed up with what book Zoe was in, so I'm sorry about that.**

**Catch ya later!**

**-I-W-E-Y-Y-L-T**

**P.S. - If anyone's up for betaing this then that would be a great help :) as you can see, I'm crap at grammar and spelling and stuff... Later!**


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